


There’s still a long Road for You and Me to go

by thefrenchmistake



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Best Friends, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Light Angst, Moving Out, Pining, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24577828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrenchmistake/pseuds/thefrenchmistake
Summary: After days and days of agonizing anxiety and crippling apprehension, Riley gathers her strength and announces to Mac that she’s moving out.Or Riley tries to get on with her life, and Mac finally figures things out.
Relationships: Angus MacGyver/Desiree "Desi" Nguyen, Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016) & Riley Davis, Riley Davis & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Riley Davis/Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Wilt Bozer & Riley Davis (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 42
Kudos: 287





	There’s still a long Road for You and Me to go

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone !  
> I've watched a few episodes of MacGyver, and because I'm me and always shipping ships that aren't canon yet (or will never be), I absolutely loved Riley/Mac, although Desi is a cool character. Couldn't wait for season 5, so here's a little thing I wrote taking place after Season 4 Episode 13. SPOILERS ALERT !  
> Hope you enjoy !

After days and days of agonizing anxiety and crippling apprehension, Riley gathers her strength and announces to Mac that she’s moving out.

He’s reduced to silence for a full minute during which her nausea gets stronger and stronger, but when he talks again (she is almost hoping for him to tell her not to go) it’s to ask:

“You found an apartment ?”

Riley pushes down the pang of disappointment and nods.

“Yeah. Not really far from here, actually, ten minutes or so.”

“So we can still have our TV trash-talking nights on Tuesdays ?”

She has to chuckle at that, looking up at him with no nervousness for the first time in a while. His golden hair is all messy after a long day of work, the corner of his lips pulled up in a small smile, and his cobalt eyes seem to gleam with something unsaid, or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

“Sure. I’ll bring the pizza, as long a you’ve got the beer.”

Then he hugs her, in a hold that feels far too much like a goodbye.

And that’s that.

A bit anticlimactic, if you ask her.

But her ribcage also feels like it’s caving in, so she’s not about to complain that it wasn’t more painful.

He offers to help with her packing up but she refuses, shooing him away, and he tells her with raised eyebrows and firm resoluteness that he’ll at least help her moving into her new apartment.

She nods and says “of course” and that’s it as well.

All of this shit feels far too easy on the outside, and Riley is still waiting for the other shoe to drop; waiting for Mac to force her to give an excuse for her departure, waiting for someone to realize why she’s leaving, waiting for him to come yelling at her in the middle of the night because how dare she put all of this on him, make it weigh on their friendship when it’s not even his fault ?

The other shoe never drops.

She continues packing with her door always closed.

“Hey.”

Riley jerks her head up, baffled at the sight of a seemingly very uncomfortable Desi standing in the doorway.

All of a sudden, she is very aware of both her just-got-out-of-bed appearance and the half-filled boxes scattered all around her. Mac is out, handling the meetings about the carbon dioxide reduction within the ten biggest American Industries, so Riley didn’t exactly expect anyone.

“Uh... Hi ?” She replies, at a loss for words.

The agent huffs, looks away, before stepping into the room with determination in her walk and crouching in front of her.

It makes Riley feel not unlike a child.

“Look, I’m not... good at this kind of stuff, but I just wanted to say that you don’t have to move out.”

Riley’s heart sinks to her stomach.

“What ?”

“I get why you think it’s best, for Mac and I, but the last thing I want is to drive you away from the place that has become your home. So I’m sorry if I took too much space, or came by too many times, or if I made you uncomfortable,” she keeps on, and Riley distantly notices it’s the first time she’s heard her say so much words in one go. “If it’s my fault, I swear I’ll make efforts, ok, you don’t....”

“Whoa, whoa, Desi !” Regaining her bearings, Riley finally stops her, waving her hands around. “Oh my God I’m so sorry I made you think... It’s not your fault, not at all !”

Desi sits down cross-legged and tilts her head to the side, looking right at her above the box Riley has been stuffing with her clothes.

“Are you sure ?”

“Yes, of course ! God, I’m such an idiot,” she groans, rubbing her temples, “I never wanted to make you feel like you weren’t welcome here. It’s as much your home as it is... was mine.”

“It’s not though. That’s why I wanted to talk to you,” she furthers with a cocked eyebrow. “This isn’t my home, it’s yours and Mac’s. I like it here, but it’s not... it’s far less important to me than it is to you. So... stay.”

Already shaking her head, Riley resumes folding her clothes and piling them up.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t ?”

Fuck, Desi is one of the best, she really has to control herself right now. She doesn’t want her to feel like this is her fault, although she has already failed at that quite brilliantly.

“I mean, I have to get a place at one point, right ? And yeah, I’m not gonna lie, part of the reason is so you and Mac can have more space but that’s not your fault at all ! It’s a good thing, right ? It means we’re both moving on with our lives. It’s time I just... get on with my life as well,” she ends up, shrugging.

Desi doesn’t seem convinced, but she nods, always perfunctory, and states:

“As long as it’s your choice. I know Mac will miss having you around.”

Her smile feels too sad on her lips, but she doesn’t even have the strength to shape it into something happier.

“Thanks, Desi.”

She nods again, and then she’s gone.

Riley resumes cleaning up while ignoring the tears in her eyes (it takes her double the usual time).

She rings Bozer up because she needs booze and a friend, and he happily answers the call, which leads them tipsy in a bar with the night ahead left to drink.

“I mean,” she begins, cheek on the table and eyes up to look at Bozer, “he didn’t even ask me to stay. Or why I was going ! Even Desi. Even Desi came up to me and told me to stay, I…”

“He’s not gonna ask you to stay, Riley.”

“Why is that ?” She exclaims, waving her hands around.

“Because he respects your decision,” her friend shrugs, “it’s as simple as that. He’s not going to ask for a justification on your part either. Hell, he probably thinks you’re moving out because _you_ need your space.”

“That’s… Fuck.”

“Why won’t you tell him ?”

“It’s not his problem, it’s mine.”

“You don’t think he’d choose you ?”

“That’s not the issue ! I don’t want to make him choose, alright ? It’s not fair to him or Desi, not even to me ! He shouldn’t have to choose !”

He holds his hands up and goes back to sipping his drink. 

“I just think you gotta let him know you’re an option, alright ?”

“He has a girlfriend, Bozer !” She snaps, because she’s so done justifying her choice after turning it over and over again in her head. “He is in love with her, and it’s great, he’s happy, and there is no way in hell I’m jeopardizing that or our friendship over a stupid, stupid crush.”

Her next shot of vodka burns too much, but it helps her ignore Bozer’s crooked eyebrow at her and his quizzical expression. Nonetheless, she can’t ignore his dubious:

“A crush ? Really ? You’re moving out because of a crush ?”

“Shut up,” she grumbles, and to her solace, he does.

They get shitfaced that night, and even though her hungover the next morning is terrible (dead tongue, vomiting in the morning, bloodshot eyes terrible), she doesn’t regret it.

She’s grateful for her friend, and even more when he doesn’t comment on her glancing away when Desi kisses Mac good morning at work, which quickly became Riley's usual way of deflecting.

She moves into her new apartment on a Saturday so all of her friends can come help her get settled in (they insisted).

Bozer gets her kitchen all cleaned up and ready for use, Matty and Russ line up the boxes marked with “computer stuff” in the office, they all get the main furniture like her brand new couch set up, and Mac offers her a kind of wall of flowers with its own irrigation system, which he explains to her but she doesn’t really get. She smiles brightly at him though, waiting for him to stop talking before she says sincerely:

“Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

He grins back, and her heart skips a beat. His skin feels too hot when he comes behind her a few minutes later to help hang up the flower panel on the wall of her living room, and although the sun reflects beautifully on the glass, forming shapes and beams of purple, blue, and yellow in her apartment, his eyes still outshine everything -and it’s not fucking fair to her.

They order pizza because she’s not ready to cook for six people in her new kitchen, and Desi brought beers to go with it. The afternoon is filled with light -she’s very proud of those glass doors- and laughter and she couldn’t wish for more than this family gathered around her for a stupid housewarming (maybe she wishes more though, just a little bit more; Mac kissing her and asking her to come home, or simply Jack beaming at her and making a dumb joke while ruffling her hair).

She loves them so much her heart bursts with it.

After a while, when almost all the pizza has been eaten and all the wine has been drunk, they go home one by one, leaving her with congratulations and a warm new apartment.

Mac is the last one to go, which isn’t that surprising, while Desi lingers by the car parked down in the street.

She probably wanted to give them some privacy.

Riley just feels uneasy, even as Mac is staring right at her, a little sad and a little broken.

“So.”

He clears his throat when his voice comes out raspy, making her skin prickle.

"I guess this is it.”

“Yeah,” she merely says with a glance to the side, contrite.

“Feels weird, uh ?” He chuckles, but there is no humor behind it and it hurts.

“Yeah,” she fake-smiles, “but it’s for the best right ? It’s time.”

She wishes he would disagree.

He just nods.

“I’ll see you Monday,” she adds after a while, because he has to go now, that would be the next logical step. His girlfriend is waiting for him by his car. She’s in a new apartment because she couldn’t watch them together.

Mac nods again.

She expects him to turn on his heels and leave, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes a few strides towards her and then crushes her to his chest in a hug that reminds her of the time they managed to get a bomb out of a German building.

Except this time it’s sadder.

She returns the hug because she’ll miss him, God, she’ll miss him so much, his science rants and his grumbling at the incoherences on Tv, and his sweaty face in the morning after a run, and his braiding her hair when she’s too lazy and…. and fuck, she’s gonna cry, so she hides her face in his shoulder and tightens her hold.

Perhaps he’s doing the same.

“Ok,” she exhales shakily, patting him once on the back.

He pulls away, his hands still clutching her waist.

“Ok,” she repeats.

Mac stares at her for a few more seconds before completely letting her go (maybe there is a metaphor to be made here, but she’s not in the mood for even more depressing thoughts), and then he just smiles sadly again.

“See you Monday, Riles.”

Once he’s gone, she closes the door behind him, mentally saying goodbye to the big house and her room and the mornings when he’d wake her up with incomprehensible science experiments, and the afternoons they’d be so bored they’d just begin a childish pillow fight or a water gun battle, and the evenings when neither of them would cook because they’re both shit at it, so they’d try to make rice and it’d evidently fail and they would order Chinese or Italian and eat it served with wine far too expensive for such a meal.

She goes to the big window, looks down the street.

The car is sliding away, carrying with it her best friend and his girlfriend, who will sleep in his bed tonight in the house where Riley’s room is completely emptied and her presence completely erased.

Riley lets herself fall to the floor, hugs her knees tight to her chest and surrounded by those stupid boxes with her own writing staring back at her, she cries.

The world doesn’t stop spinning because she’s besieged by her own overwhelming feelings, and so they get back in the field. They accomplish missions, they put away bad guys.

And each time, she resists the urge to tell him, because everything can always go wrong and when they thought they were gonna die he held her hand and doesn’t that mean something ?

She wants to, she wants to, but she never does, and she’s reminded of why every single time they make it out and Desi jumps into his arms and Mac buries his face in her neck (it’s not just the girlfriend, it’s the displaying of the risk this job encompasses).

Every single time, she turns away.

Mac and she are quite normal with each other -she knows how not to screw up their friendship by stupid assumptions like “cutting all ties will be easier” or “I can’t see him, my feelings are too obvious”- as she’s getting pretty good with the whole conceal don’t feel motto.

As long as she doesn’t get touchy and heart eyes, for which there’s no reason, everything will be fine.

She’d like to say that Mac acts a little different, after her moving out, but she doesn’t feel like that’s the case.

He seeks her out more, for sure, taking advantage of her being alone at the Phoenix most of the time to sit with her and tell her the last weird gossip in the neighborhood or that the kitchen is almost collecting dust now that she’s not here to push him to cook (or try, at least).

There are some moments where she wonders.  
Moments in which she turns her head and he’s already looking at her, or when he whispers a joke in her ear and seems delighted to get a simple snort of laughter in response or when his hand reaches out for her shoulder or neck before he reconsiders.

So yeah, there are some moments.

She forces them not to mean anything.

Even as he assured her that she always got him, that she was never alone, she can’t help but notice the precarious equilibrium of their relationship that had shifted without her consent, mind you, even as it was already on thin ice.

For once, Riley wants something permanent, something that cannot be taken away.

Is that too much to ask ?

It goes like it always does: they have a mission that requires them both (computer skills oblige) and something misfires, which means they’re running like madmen and she’s wondering when things went wrong in her life even as she grabs Mac’s arm and pulls him in a room on their right before slamming the door shut.

“Really Riles ? A closet ?” He mocks and he’s far too comfortable and cheeky for their situation.

“Oh, I’m sorry, would you like to go back out there and find another hiding place ?”

“I’m good.”

He’s too close, she realizes.

Mac looking down at her with that glint in his eyes and that smirk on his lips and his body exuding warmth means he’s _far too close_.

She pokes his shoulder, which makes him take a step back, and then she jerks her head so he’ll look behind him.

“You got everything you need here ?”

Science and the promise of a new invention always manages to switch his focus back to the puzzle he has to piece together. The gravity suited to their situation seems to dawn on him as he studies what they can work with.

“I can probably make a smoke grenade, or something close to it.”

As he crouches to read the labels better and check he has everything, running echoes on the other side of the door, and she sits down. Usually, she’s interested by what he’s doing and how he’s doing it, fascinated by the way his brain works, but right now she doesn’t think she can handle being stuck in a closet with him talking science and chain reactions (she has a _thing_ for his patient and specialized explanations of science, so she might actually _die_ ).

“They can’t go in blind,” he begins, still turned away from her, "and we can’t go out with their eyes on us.”

“Cameras, got you.”

She gets her computer out, and it takes her only a few minutes to be ready. She just has to press the button, and they’re clear to make their exit.

She stays silent so he can focus, but Mac apparently has other ideas while he gathers the needed elements. 

“So, how was your date last week ?”

“What ?”

“Last week. Your date,” he repeats, like she’s slow.

She kicks his shin and ignores his offended exclamation.

“I heard you the first time. Why would you ask me that right now ?”

“Well,” he shrugs, still not making the damn grenade for some reason, except that now he’s turned towards her, “now you can’t get out of this conversation.”

“It was fine,” she lies.

“You going on a second date ?”

“Oh my God, Mac, there isn’t gonna be any more dates if we die in here ! Do your thing,” she hisses, and he sends her an amused look under a crooked eyebrow but they don’t have time for him being cute.

“My thing ?”

“Mac !”

“Alright, I got it. Jeez.”

She takes advantage of the fact he has his hands otherwise occupied to punch him in the arm in retaliation.

The asshole chuckles, all seriousness vanished even as the invention he’s coming up with will probably save their asses. He’s able to multitask like that. Or maybe it’s just compartmentalization.

“So, it was terrible ?”

“Would you just…”

“Come on Riles, we both know I focus better if you talk to me.”

“It was awful,” she confesses after a sigh. “The guy was a complete dick.”

“Talked about himself a lot ?”

“Talked to my cleavage a lot, that’s for sure,” she mutters, and he makes a sound.

“Ah, that kind of dick.”

“The worst kind. Anyway, it was a mistake.”

“Because he was a dick ?”

Riley shouldn’t talk to him about that, it’s a really, really bad idea, but he’s her best friend before all, and she wants to talk to her best friend.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to start dating again.”

He stops his fidgeting abruptly, looks at her. It takes him a few seconds to lower his eyes again and remark with caution:

“Aubrey was a while ago.”

She shrugs, uneasy. Aubrey is still a weak spot and a bitter memory (they lived together for six months, for fuck’s sake, it doesn’t just vanish like that) and to add to that, the break up had just rendered her feelings for Mac far too obvious for her taste.

“Maybe my life is too complicated right now to think about dating, with the job and all.”

“Desi and I…”

“You’re different,” she cuts him off. “You work together.”

“You could easily find someone in the profession, if you wanted to,” he assures, resuming his craft stuff.

“Like Billy ? Because that worked out so well,” she mutters and her jaw clenches.

“That wasn’t on you.”

She knows it wasn’t. It wasn’t her fault. Yet she’s the one he cheated on, probably because she wasn’t _there_ , was too busy, wasn’t enough.

Fuck, she hates herself for questioning her behavior even as she did nothing wrong. It just gets too close to her dad’s behavior, to Jack’s leaving. It just piles up and piles up and she’s eventually left wondering what’s wrong with her that she can’t seem to keep the men in her life.

“Riles,” Mac insists, seeking her gaze. She allows it. “It wasn’t your fault. He was a fucking moron. He had you right there and he went looking somewhere else. He was a moron, and a dick, and I’m glad you dumped him. Because if someone is dumb enough to give you, genius hacker, kickass agent, up, he doesn’t even deserve to be in your vicinity.”

“He was a moron,” she agrees but her voice is watery and her throat is a bit closed up.

She kind of wants to shake Mac and yell at him that she’s right fucking there, but she also knows she’ll never do that.

He gives her a bright smile and says:

“We’re good to go.”

The whole predicament couldn’t have taken more than six or seven minutes.

She shuts the cameras down.

They take down a few agents on the way out, running like devils with the smoke of their hand-made grenade on their heels.

She takes a punch to the face, which bruises her ego more than her cheek, and after getting rid of that one, she whirls around to where Mac is fighting with another.

It seems ok, which is why she makes her way towards them not as fast as she can, but then Mac lands a punch to the gut and the man stumbles two steps back.

That’s when her heart sinks.

Taking advantage of the momentary distance between them, the guy pulls his gun out of his holster, and in a micro second, not even enough time for her to yell his name, the man shoots.

Right in the chest.

Mac falls to the ground, hard, and she runs to collide sideways with the assailant -too late, too late- punching him in the face to knock him out for good.

Mac isn’t moving.

She can’t breathe, she can’t breathe, and she falls to her knees next to him, calling out his name.

There is no blood, but his eyes are closed and she can’t breathe, she can’t breathe.

“Mac, Mac, come on,” she begs, shaking fingers tearing his jacket open to see where the bullet hit, patting his torso, and she’s freaking out, he’s not moving, he’s not fucking moving and if she can’t find the wound he’s gonna bleed out, he’s gonna bleed out right there…

He snorts.

Her eyes jump to his face, and he’s already looking at her with a small smile on his lips.

“Got lucky,” he chuckles, fishing his wallet out of his chest pocket and holding it up to her eye-level.

The bullet is buried in it.

Mac begins to laugh, sitting up.

“For fuck’s sake !” She snaps, pushing him away far too violently and surging up on her feet.

He’s still laughing, so she starts walking -storming off- towards the car, biting her cheek to avoid screaming at him.

“Oh, Riles, come on !” He exclaims behind her, still laughing his ass off.

She’s probably gonna cry, but there is no way she actually is, because fuck him.

“Riles !” He calls out again, but she’s already at the car.

She almost wrenches the car door open, and then she’s fuming in the driver’s seat, patiently waiting for him to move his butt.

Her gaze stays fixed on the wheel when he climbs into the passenger’s seat, when he says her name again, when he stops chuckling and she realizes she hasn’t turned the engine on.

“Riles.”

“What ?” She snaps, looking straight ahead and still not driving away. They probably should. There are like, four bodies here, and people that are gonna come after them.

“Come on, it was pretty funny ?”

“Yeah, it was fucking hilarious. I’ll be sure to laugh next time, when a real bullet ends up in your forehead.”

Her hand is shaking when she reaches towards the key to turn it, but she never does because all of a sudden his hand is on hers, slightly bruised but steady and warm.

“Hey, I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you, Mac,” she says, but it’s strangled and he says her name again, and she can’t help but look at him this time.

His features are tense with worry, and that expression he gets when he really wants to fix something that just broke.

“I’m sorry. You’re right, it was stupid.”

“You can’t just.... you can’t just do shit like that, it’s... do you know what crossed my mind for those three seconds ?”

He begins to shake his head but she doesn’t even give him time to.

“First second, I tried to gather every piece of knowledge I knew about gun injury, how to make a tourniquet, how to try and stop you from bleeding out. Second one, I thought that even if I could make a tourniquet had the bullet missed a major artery or an organ, we were stuck here without comm and hours away from backup or an hospital. Third second I thought I was gonna watch you bleed out and die in front of me,” she finishes, voice hard as steel even though her whole arm is trembling with anger or fear, she’s not sure. “So don’t you dare do something like that ever again, you got this ?”

Not awaiting an answer, she shakes his hand off and turns the ignition key. The motor roars, and they take off. Riley tries to focus on the rumble of the car beneath her, not on the way she's clenching the wheel to stop the trembling, nor on the idea that he could’ve fucking died there, and she would’ve been the one responsible, she would’ve had to tell it to Desi, she would’ve had to call Jack and she would’ve had to scrub his blood off her clothes and her hands and he could’ve _died_.

“I’m sorry,” he breaks the silence. “I didn’t realize.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean ?” Mac asks, on the defensive now.

“It means that you’re always figuring shit out for everybody else to get out of desperate situations unscathed, but when it comes to you, you just fucking shut your brains down and all of a sudden it doesn’t matter, because it’s just you and who gives a shit if you die, right ?”

“That’s not...”

“You always think about others, but you never think about the way we would fucking feel, if something happened to you. You never... God, whatever,” she huffs, tightening her grip on the wheel.

He’s silent for too long, like he’s thinking about what she said.

If it can get him to stop putting his life in jeopardy, she’s on board.

“I... I never thought of it like that. But Riles, I need you to know I wouldn’t... I would never go down without a fight, alright ? I need you to know that.”

Her shoulders sag.

She sighs.

“I know,” she mutters. “I just wish you’d realize that you matter as much as anyone else.”

He doesn’t answer, and when she glances at him a few minutes later, he’s frowning in the distance.

They had so many close calls, so many things gone wrong just to be righted at the last minute by a nudge of luck or Mac’s genius brain fixing something up, she knows what it feels like to believe he’s injured or worse, to believe he won’t make it back.

She doesn’t like that feeling with any of her friends, of course, and she’s always fighting when she needs to, but…

But with Mac, somehow, it’s different.

It’s been different for a while.

Since Germany, it’s just more obvious.

Instead of working with him and counting on herself and her skills and training, she _relies_ on him. She believes in him, believes that he’ll get them out, that he can resolve unresolvable situations, and that has scared her so much for so long, this thing akin to codependency she built with him. Then she realized it wasn’t codependency, far from it, that they just clicked in so many ways.

That she wasn’t alone.

And the odd thing is, that’s the only condition about how she wants to go; not the when or where or how but with whom.

She knows she’s in love with him, she’s not stupid, but she doesn’t want to voice it out loud. It’s not even about the fact that it would make it come to life, give an actual word to those feelings. It’s just that if she says it aloud, she’s not sure she’ll be able to stop.

She’ll just want to tell him. 

And they can’t have that.

“I get it,” Mac says, abruptly pulling her away from her thoughts. “But Riles, when it comes down to you or me, you gotta know…”

“I know. I know,” she repeats, eyes fleeting towards his open face. “I just think it’s stupid. But I get it, too. Just as you probably get that if it’s you or me…”

“I wouldn’t want that.”

“Who would ?”

“I couldn’t…”

“Tough luck, MacGyver. You just gotta understand than you’re as important to your friends as they are to you, and that I would do anything to get you out of trouble, if you don’t get out of it first.”

“That’s overestimating me.”

“It’s called faith, get used to it.”

“I did,” he says softly, and the tone of his voice is too warm, too sincere so she knows she can’t look at him, otherwise she’ll do something really stupid like kiss him or crash the car because of his eyes.

“Good.”

Because they’re each other’s go-to person in case of trouble, Mac shows up at her door a week later at ten in the evening, with a contrite smile, a bag of Chinese take out, and the statement bursting from his mouth.

“Desi and I broke up.”

Riley lets him in, pours them both a drink of whatever cheap alcohol she’s got in her cupboard, and hands it to him once they’re both sitting on her couch.

He downs it in one go.

Not one to judge, she simply pours him another one and because he won’t meet her eye, she asks.

“What happened ?”

Mac shrugs, eyeing the bottom of his glass before taking another swig and then answering:

“It didn’t work. We knew it was... unconventional, but we thought we could work past it, you know ? But there are just some things... we figured out we don’t want the same thing, and we don’t except the same and we just don’t click, no matter how hard we force things. I tried, but....”

“Yeah,” she sighs, gripping his shoulder, “I know you tried. You would never give up without a fight.”

“God, it’s so messed up,” he exhales heavily as he leans back into the couch, hands coming up to rub his eyes. “When we got back together, we didn’t even really talk things out, you know ? I think that was our mistake, getting back together just because we kissed, and suddenly we stuck together all the time and she came by the house and… We should have just talked, for fuck’s sake."

“You didn’t want to break up ?”

“I... I don’t know. At the end of the day, I think it’s the best decision for us both, but... I really wanted this to work.”

She lets a moment of silence pass before she says:

“I would offer you to burn stuff or wreck her car, but she knows how to hide a body.”

He snorts.

“We’ll just get drunk for now, Yeah ?” She offers, already on her feet in order to get another bottle from the kitchen. “Afterwards, you can tell me what you wanna destroy.”

“Deal.”

The night is a rollercoaster.

They end up really, really drunk, and Riley has hacked into Stanford University to get her hand on the final exams of engineering so she can ask a wasted, slurring Mac all the questions on the test and throw potato chips at him when he ends up staring into the distance or not figuring it out.

She’s sent into fit of laughter after fit of laughter, because he can’t exactly think with all the alcohol, and he just comes up with dumb shit.

After a question about an amphibious vehicle taking five minutes to travel a mile underwater and whatever and Mac trying to explain his reasoning using toothpicks and some paperclips, he snaps his head up towards her from where he’s crouched before the coffee table.

“Riley. Riles.”

“What ?” She laughs, head dizzy and warmth buzzing through her veins at the name. She isn’t one for nicknames, but she doesn’t mind it with Mac. What can she say ? It rolls nicely off his tongue, gets a little rougher at the end.

“Do you have marshmallows ?”

“Yes,” she drawls out, suspicious.

“What if,” he gesticulates, eyes too wide for her to take him seriously. “What if we put the melted marshmallows in the cold chocolate and then…”

“No, no, we’re not… You’re gonna blow up my microwave.”

“You offered to burn stuff.”

“I didn’t mean _my_ stuff !”

“Oh, right. Desi.”

The good mood seems to fizzle a bit, and she doesn’t know what to say, so she nudges his shoulder with her foot (don’t ask her why, it’s like… a gesture of comfort).

“Hey, Riles ?”

“Yeah ?”

“Do you think I screwed up with Desi ?”

She bites the inside of her cheek as he turns his blue eyes to her, features drawn in desperation.

“No,” she shakes her head, putting her glass on the coffee table. “Neither one of you screwed up Mac. It’s just… life. You weren’t meant to last.”

“Uh ? You think so ?”

“Forget it,” she grumbles, not really wanting to delve into that right now, “it’s stupid, what do I know anyway, I…”

“No, Riles.”

He difficultly slides his massive body up from the floor to settle on the couch, and the whole thing would be funny if they were talking about literally anything else right now.

But the fact is, her best friend is asking her opinion on his relationship with a super cool, beautiful, kickass chick, and she’s kind of dying here.

“Please,” he murmurs, his big hand -God, they’re so big, her fuzzy brain wonders how they would feel around her throat and nope, back on track- settling on her ankle and his eyes boring into her slightly glazed ones.

“Well, I just don’t… I think you didn’t have much in common, you know ? Apart from the job, I mean. You had a connection, that’s true, but I just… Do you mind me asking a question ?”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you think you had an emotional connection ? Because from my point of view, which, again, is not… necessarily right, you clicked more on the… Physical level.”

“Physical level ?” He asks dumbly.

Yeah, she forgot Mac is kind of useless and slow when it comes to this type of thing. Biting her cheek, she weighs the pros and cons of diving into the sex life of the guy she’s in love with and his ex girlfriend.

What a fucking drag.

“Were you together because the sex was good or because deep down you knew Desi was the one you could fall in love with, spend the rest of your life with ?”

His mouth opens.

“I… I do love her.”

Despite it being obvious, that hurts. Riley merely nods.

“But I-“ he continues “I never really saw… A future with her. You’re right. Fuck,” he curses, back to pressing his palms on his eyes.

“Hey, Mac, hey,” she stumbles over her words, shifting uneasily so she can grab both his wrists in her hands and pull them away from his face.

Wow, his eyes are blue. 

“You’re right,” he repeats. “Even at first, I mean, there was, there was all this sexual tension, and the sex was… Great, you know, but at first it was just fucking, to blow off steam and…”

She knows he’s far too drunk, because Mac would never say stuff like that, even to her. Their sex lives are a little too far into personal territory.

God, how is this her life ?

“We never really talked,” he exclaims like it’s the first time he’s thought about that. “When we got into a fight we’d just… Fuck the anger out. Even after Codex, even when she had her gun fucking pointed at you, we didn’t… She said she was sorry, you know, and I said it was ok, but it… it wasn’t. I guess we just got used to… ignoring the things that bothered us and we focused on… on the familiarity of it all. But it didn’t solve anything, it… It just… We led each other on. We never wanted the same thing.”

He stops talking.

Riley lets him think.

She should go to bed, her sleepy brain provides. She’s been drifting in and out of sleep for… some time already. Mac has slid to the floor and is lying on his back on her carpet, a pillow tucked under his head and covered with a blanket found somewhere that she hastily threw on him.

She should go to bed, but she doesn’t want to be alone under her sheets, and she believes her friend needs her with him right now.

Besides, she doesn’t think she’s able to move at the moment.

An hour or so might or might not have passed when he pipes up:

“Hey, Riles ?”

“Yeah ?” She mumbles, and she might be drooling on the cushion, it’s highly possible.

“Do you remember Germany ?”

“I remember the bomb in Germany, that’s for sure.”

“No, but the… the talk we had. About Aubrey. And Desi.”

“Yeah.”

“And you asked me if… If we were too screwed up by our jobs to have a healthy relationship ?”

“Yeah,” she says again, not sure where he’s going with this.

“I think I am.”

She pushes her upper body up to bend over the edge of the couch and stare at him disapprovingly.

“Bullshit.”

“No, I… I wonder if I’m not just… sabotaging my relationships, you know ?”

“You try to make it work, Mac.”

“Yeah, but I always jump headfirst into a relationship with someone I know will either not be good for me or who will not want the same thing as I do. I mean, Desi and I, it was… I told you, it was physical, so why would I just… Whatever.”

“You’re not sabotaging anything, you’re an optimist. That’s who you are.”

“And you’re not ?”

“I’m a fucking cynical person, Mac. Look at the debacle with Aubrey. Why do you think I hid it from you and from him for so long ?”

“God,” he sighs, passing a hand on his face before looking up at her. “I can’t believe you told me about him after you _moved in_ with him. Six months !”

“I already told you. External relationships and our job don’t go together. I just… I just wanted something for myself for some time, and maybe I… Maybe I got carried away.”

“He made you smile.”

That remark is so innocent, so out of the blue, she feels her eyes water.

“Yeah. Well.”

“I’ve never seen you smile so wide because of someone else before.”

“Someone else ?”

“You only smile like that when… Whatever,” he grumbles, and her heart is beating wildly against her chest even as her body feels heavier than led. She wants to go to sleep and forget about it, but she also wanna know what he was gonna say.

“But then he made you cry, so… Dickhead.”

Riley snorts.

“What kind of name is Aubrey anyway ?”

Instead of taking the chance to echo their banter in Germany with a well-placed “Ok, Angus,” she lets her head fall back on the pillow so she won’t be looking at him anymore and sighs.

“It is a stupid name. And the restaurant was stupid.”

“There wasn’t even anything to eat.”

“Oh my God, right ? I was so hungry !”

“Is that what the food was for, an apology ?”

“Yeah.”

“Food against a bed, that’s a good deal.”

“That. And I needed a friend I knew would stick around.”

In a far more serious and huskier voice, Mac whispers in the dark like a secret oath:

“I told you, Riles. You got me.”

She lets herself cry silently in her pillow.

It’s not really for Aubrey. It’s not really for Mac, at least she doesn’t think so.

It’s probably more for herself.

Desi and Mac are very good at avoiding the elephant in the room, Riley concludes after the first week post break up.

It’s not exactly awkward, it’s more tense than anything else, both of them visibly frustrated even as they don’t really have anything to be frustrated about. The sad thing is that their communication doesn’t really change from when they were together, and the realization seems to hit them hard enough that the bitterness that might have occurred with the break-up doesn’t blow up.

But Mac hangs out with Riley far more now, always coming up to her elbow to check something on the computer, always next to her when fidgeting with a new invention, always in her vicinity, making her acutely aware of both him and the fact that he’s single now.

She’s not the kind of person to jump on someone who just broke up with someone they actually loved, especially when it’s her goddamn best friend. Apparently her brain didn’t get the memo, cause she can’t stop thinking about pulling him down and kissing him senseless each time he tugs on her hair to get her attention and his face is too close when she turns her head.

Anyway.

She gets through it.

Desi’s behavior doesn’t really stray from her usual one, a bit closed off and an angry face on at all times, ever professional.

The difference is that now, Riley knows no one is sleeping in Mac’s bed; that her room is empty for kind of no reason; that she could just pull one from any rom-com ever and show up at his house with a boombox under the pouring rain (to enhance the dramatic flair).

But she’s a cynical, down-to-earth hacker who doesn’t really believe in grand declarations of love and who is a bit of a coward when it comes to matters of the heart, so she just enjoys their banter and the smiles sent her way that make her lungs shrink a little, and shuts her mouth.

Riley’s a good person like that (she’s a terrible, terrible person who invades his personal space and is glad he broke up and enjoys the way his hands find hers in dangerous situation where people’s lives are literally hanging in the balance).

She just finished emptying her last box of clothes -yes, she waited all this time and still hasn’t completely moved in, sue her- when her phone buzzes and she’s surprised to see it’s from Mac.

 _At the door_.

A little surprised, she gets up and goes to open it.

Evidently, he’s on the other side, far more disheveled than she expected.

“Hey,” she smiles up at him, “What are you....”

He doesn’t let her finish, one hand cupping the back of her neck and pulling her to him so he can kiss her.

A not-so-sexy noise escapes her. It’s not even a real kiss, more like a short contact of their lips, but it sends her mind spiraling anyway with how soft his lips are and how she would like to press them open and slide her tongue in his mouth.

He pulls away right when she’s about to damn it all and move closer, ignoring the pressing need for explanations.

Somehow, his features are overtaken by astonishment and apprehension at the same time, and then he opens his mouth and it’s even more confusing.

“I’m sorry, Riles, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have just kissed you like that, can I... fuck, can we talk ?”

Stunned, lips still tingly, she steps aside so he can come in. Her eyes are drawn to his mouth, a little swollen and _what_ ?

“Mac, what… What…”

She can’t seem to find her words, so she huffs, raising her arms and letting them fall heavily on her sides.

“I just… I realized that… I’ve always been slow about these things, but God, I’ve been so stupid, I…”

He exhales heavily, looks around the room just to have something to do before eventually looking back at her. Maybe he should go back to glancing around the room, because she can’t really concentrate with his cobalt eyes fixed on her with so much _intensity_ her breath itches.

“I want more. With you, I mean. I want more.”

“How…”

“I know I’m just dumping this on you right now, and I… I get why you moved out,” he blurts out of fucking nowhere, and it’s like a cold shower.

“Did Bozer talk to you ? Is this why you’re doing this ?”

“No, no ! I mean, we talked, but he didn’t tell me anything, I just finally figured it out.”

“He didn’t tell you ?”

“Not really. He just asked me if... if Desi was the one I thought about, when I imagined the best or the worst. If she was the one I wanted by my side in all situations,” he continues, visibly distressed.

“And ?” Riley asks, a lump in her throat.

She’s not oblivious, if he’s here and saying all this, she knows where this is going, but she needs him to say it. It’s been months and months of her pining for him without his noticing, and last time they talked about relationships, he told her he alway chose wrong despite his best intentions, that he was uncertain about the future in and of itself.

He doesn’t seem uncertain now, standing in the middle of her apartment haloed with the light dimmed by lampshades, his gaze locked on hers.

“And when I think about who I wanna be with, if I die, who I would want to face the end of the world with, I think of you. Because you were there, time after time, with me. And when I... when I remember the missile, I just remember that I was... I was ok with dying with your hand in mine and with you by my side. I was ok with it. And it took me a shitload of time to realize that, but I know it now. You’re the person I want by my side every time shit hits the fan and every time we can relax and watch some dumb, inaccurate movie, or when we go out, or go to work. You’re the person I want with me, the whole time, every time.”

She bites her lip so her smile won’t literally split her cheeks, and she takes a step towards him.

“Are you sure ?”

Mac smiles back.

“Yeah."

“Good.”

She’s the one to kiss him now, clawing at his neck to bring him down to her, and she’s not a limp participant this time, that’s for sure. She’s fucking starved for him, has been for months, and now that she finally has him right here, she’s not about to miss her chance.

He wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her up and closer, his tongue running against hers like he’s wanted to do that for some time, and yeah, she shares the feeling.

He’s so huge, for Christ’s sake, his right hand covers the majority of her back as he presses her against him and drowns her in his warmth. There is no fever, there is no rush, but there is a heat she’s unfamiliar with, a craving to touch and taste and finally take everything he can give her.

She pushes him backwards, trying to navigate blindly through the apartment, but when Mac doesn’t budge and just keeps on kissing her, she has to pull away and pant:

“Bedroom, on the left.”

“I know,” he replies with a smirk that she would find infuriating, except his lips are swollen and now she knows what they taste like, so she dives right back in, trusting him to get them there considering he’s so damn smart.

He hauls her up because he’s stupidly stronger and bigger than her, so she wraps her legs around his hips and her arms around his shoulders, wishing they had done that years ago (but it’s quite perfect the way it is, so she’s not really complaining).

Once in the bedroom, instead of letting her fall on the mattress, he spins around and sits down, keeping her bracketing his waist.

For some reason, Riley likes that.

Her nimble fingers begin unbuttoning his shirt while his wander up her back, fiddling with her bra.

She almost laughs against his lips, but then his tongue does something just as his other hand falls to her ass and pushes her against his hips.

A choked moan is torn from her throat but she doesn’t even mind, not when she can take to bucking against him and she can finally pull his shirt off.

And wow, that’s a lot of muscles, which is unfair considering the already big enough size of his brain.

She places a hand on his chest and pushes so he’ll lay down on his back, and despite his crooked eyebrow, he obeys (she can get used to that kind of compliance from him).

She kind of misses his lips as soon as they leave hers, but she makes up for it by descending on his throat and God, his skin is burning up.

She always knew Mac liked her hair, always tugging at it or brushing it away from her face or tucking it behind her ear, so it comes to no surprise when he deftly unties it and buries his hand between the strands.

She likes that, too. A whole lot.

After a particular vicious nipping at his navel and his answering groan, he breathes out:

“I knew you would bring trouble the moment I met you.”

Riley doesn’t take offense, tilts her head up to lock eyes with him and taunt with a smirk he wants to taste again:

“Isn’t your life most exciting spattered with some trouble though ?”

He snorts, gripping her hair tighter, and she laughs against his stomach.

“I said that to be cute, because we both know you’re a magnet for trouble and if one of us is making things difficult for the other, it’s you.”

“Ok, you’ve got a point.”

“Mmmh.”

“But I wouldn’t want to drag anyone else into this.”

“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment ?”

He tries to shrug, but then her tongue is tracing the crease of his hips and after that, they both lose the ability to talk.

They have time for that, anyway.

And when they’ve discovered every part of each other’s body and huffed laughs in each other’s ears and filled the bedroom with the sounds of their journey, Riley lets her brains reboot before she dares to look at him and say out loud:

“I don’t want them to know yet. Let’s figure it out first, just us.”

“I’m with you on this one,” Mac smiles, kissing her again and she can definitely get used to that, as well as the muscles jumping under her touch.

“That’s not fair,” she grumbles, hands appreciating the hard planes of his chest. “You can’t be a nerd and be hot.”

Mac snorts, bites at her neck.

“Look at you.”

“I’m a geek, not a nerd. Can’t believe you’re that ignorant on the…" he shuts her off with a kiss and ok. She’ll let that slide for now.

His hand grips her thigh to bring her closer, and she never wants to leave this bed.

Fuck saving the world, she wants Angus MacGyver all to herself.

They sneak around for weeks.

Riley isn’t the type to get a thrill from lying to people she loves and considers family, but there is something about the way Mac grabs her arm and pulls her against a wall in a dark corner to kiss her senseless and the way he struts away, a damn smirk on his face as she’s left breathless.

There is something about the fact that in a meeting, she can put her hand on his thigh and drum her fingers, trail them along the muscle, and he tenses but can’t do anything.

There is something about the way he’ll make sure no one is left in the locker to the showers and then enter her booth, immediately gripping her hair and bringing her to his mouth.

So yeah, she isn’t a fan of lying, but the secret makes it safer, somehow, this thing they have. It makes it intimate and impossibly _good_.

And then something goes wrong, as always, and instead of hugging and calling it a day, they’re far too touchy and comfortable with each other for the rest of the team not to notice (later, she’ll blame the kiss he pressed to the crown of her head, and he’ll blame her cradling his face and checking if he has any open wound).

It was just a matter of time, but she still feels like a kid with Matty staring down at them disapprovingly, arms crossed over her chest, and Bozer laughing his ass off in the corner of the room.

Desi simply nodded and left, but she didn’t seem like she wanted to slit her throat, so Riley counts that as a win.

“How long ?”

They share a fleeting glance, answering at the same time:

“Two months.”

Bozer laughs louder.

Russ shakes his head.

“People,” Matty snaps, looking at the other members, “we are a secret agency. We are spies. We’re supposed to pay attention and you’re telling me none of you noticed anything ?”

“Desi noticed,” Mac chimes in, and this time Riley’s eyes are on him as well as the others.

“What ?”

“She talked to me about it.”

“And she didn’t report it ?”

He shrugs.

“If you want an explanation, ask her. But I think it was to leave us the chance to come to you first.”

“Which you didn’t do, Blondie.”

Riley allows a relieved breath to escape her at the nickname; they’re fine.

Although Matty shakes her head, the corner of her mouth is twitching, and she frowns before waving a hand at them.

“Ok, get out now.”

“That’s it ?” She asks, uncertain.

Matty raises her eyebrows at them and she doesn’t have to be told twice, she grabs Mac’s hand and drags him out of here under Bozer’s loud laughter (what a dick, but he listened to her pathetic rants for months so she’ll gladly let him have this one).

Their bubble burst, nothing stops them from going back to his house together.

Maybe people dear to her knowing doesn’t matter that much; it might be better, not to hide their relationship -God, they’re in a _relationship_ \- and to be free to hold hands at barbecues on the weekends and to play with his hair on movie nights without anyone making a comment. Once they’re in the car, both of their faces brighten with big smiles they can’t erase.

“Oh my God,” she suddenly realizes.

“What ?”

“Now we have to tell Jack.”

The horror on his face reflects hers.

Jack comes barging through the door a day after their call.

Riley can’t say she’s surprised.

She chokes on her coffee at the sight, sure, but they were expecting him.

“You little shits.”

Mac rolls his eyes at their father figure’s antics, and simply pours him a cup of coffee with an unimpressed face.

“Coffee ?”

“I’m gonna need it.”

Once he’s seated at her right and Mac is safely on the other side of the counter, he lets his eyes slide between the two of them and says:

“I will not have you murder each other if something goes wrong, nor will I murder one of you. Is that clear ?”

“Cristal clear,” Riley mocks, biting the inside of her cheek and sending her boyfriend a look.

“I’ll do my best to keep anything from going wrong,” Mac assures. “I kinda like her.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Jack snorts, before gulping down his coffee. “I hope neither of you is a damn idiot and will fuck this up. You’re the best either of you is gonna get.”

“I don’t know,” Mac teases, looking right at her. “Lousy education, and overprotective father figure.”

“Like you can talk,” Jack returns before realizing. “Whatever. Just… Keep the PDA away from my face. And I’m glad for you.”

The smile on his face is wide and honest, and this is what she missed when she moved in her new apartment. His ability to just light up a room with a stupid joke and a smile.

Mac rounds the counter so he can sit on the stool on her left, and winds an arm around her shoulders.

“Yeah,” he beams, “we’re pretty glad too.”

She rolls her eyes, but shifts closer.

“Sap.”

“Does that mean we get to do family stuff all together then ?” Jack abruptly asks.

“That’s a weird thing to say,” she replies, a grimace on her face.

Mac presses a light kiss to her cheek before facing the older man and answering the thing she would have, had she been any less snarky.

“Yeah, I guess we can go on a summer vacation and stuff.”

“Yay, family holiday. I’ll make sure nothing goes wrong between you two dumbasses.”

“Or you just… Keep your nose out of our relationship ? Even if we screw up ?”

With Mac’s arm heavy and cozy around her shoulders, Riley can’t help but ask Jack with a smirk:

“You’d still help us trash each other’s car or something though, right ?”

Over dinner, as she’s sitting with a foot on the chair so she can press her cheek on her knee to watch him stir the pasta (what a backside, Lord), he turns around and asks her without an ounce of hesitation:

“You want to move back in ?”

She’s dazzled for a few seconds. Then, a smile stretches her mouth wide, and the evening is still bright, and he awaits her answer but seems neither stressed nor doubtful.

“Thought you’d never ask. Can I take my old bed ?” She taunts, biting her lip.

“Nope. I intend to keep you in mine.”

“What a hardship.”

When he kisses her and hoists her up to get to the bedroom, she laughs and thinks that this, this might be what can’t be taken away.

Maybe they got it right, this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to leave kudos or comments if you liked, they really make my day during this period of time.  
> Vote MacRiley for season 5 !  
> Thank you all for reading !


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